


This Above All

by cylobaby27



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: College, Gen, Not actually a college AU though, References to Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 03:46:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15655116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cylobaby27/pseuds/cylobaby27
Summary: To make up for missing some lectures in his Shakespeare class, Tim has to take night classes. There's an unexpected student in attendance.





	This Above All

“Please, professor?” Tim asked, one hand in the strap of his backpack. “There has to be something I can do.”

“Mr. Drake, you’ve missed the last three of my lectures,” Professor Morley, a slender woman with a cheekbones like knives, said. “You missed the entirety of our Hamlet section. I can’t reteach an entire play just for you. You knew the attendance policy when you chose to skip class.”

He had been out of the country on Teen Titan business, but that excuse wouldn’t fly.  The professors for the other classes he’d missed had made exceptions, but Morley was unmoved. “I was away for work,” he said instead.

“Mr. Drake,” she said. He thought she liked saying his name to put more distance between them. “I know you work for your father’s company. That is not going to change my mind.”

“No, I’m not trying to…” Tim shook his head. “Listen, I’m really sorry. I’m trying to do better. I’ll do double the work I would have done if I’d made it to class if I can make this up. I’ll write an extra essay, or—anything. Just, anything.”

She hesitated, and then finally sighed. “I was serious that I can’t spare any time to tutor you on what you missed, but I know one of the night classes is studying Hamlet for the next few weeks. Go to those classes—every one—and give me whatever paper the professor has you write on it in the end. They’re doing a more in-depth study, so it’ll take you two or three weeks of classes to finish the play, but if you do that, I’ll ignore the absences and grade your paper like one of my own.”

“Okay, I can do that,” Tim said.

“You still have to come to my lectures,” she reminded him.

“I will. I promise!” he said, shouldering his bag.

She looked at him and smiled. “Go get some coffee, Mr. Drake. You look like you’re about to fall over. Put in the effort, and this will work out fine.”

 

#

 

The night classes in question were in a Gotham University building Tim hadn’t been in before. The campus was not like the contained, quiet colleges he’d seen on TV. There was no quad, and the dining hall was on the second story of an otherwise unaffiliated building. There was a three block square in the northern end of Gotham were most of the university’s buildings were located, but they were interspersed with other businesses, and were indistinguishable on the outside from the city’s business structures.

The part of Tim that had always imagined himself at Harvard or Princeton someday, lounging on the quad and having the traditional Ivy League experience, had been disappointed his first day at Gotham University. No matter what Bruce said, though, Gotham was Tim’s life, and he couldn’t afford to take four years in a college town. Wayne Enterprises needed Tim, and Gotham needed Red Robin. Less now that Robin and the Signal were on the team, but the point stood. Even with Red Hood finally agreeing to join their group comms and taking orders from Oracle, there was enough crime in the city for them all. Tim was committed to Gotham, and that meant staying local for college.

Because it was a building Tim had never been to before, he got lost inside the labyrinthine halls, which had clearly been constantly added to and rearranged so that the final result was something out of the Winchester House. When he finally slipped in the back door of the classroom on the basement level, class had already started.

Tim waved to the professor, who nodded at him and kept talking while Tim found a desk at the back of the small group of students.

“Act I sets the scene, and puts the rest of the play into action,” the professor was saying. “In some of Shakespeare’s work, it takes until the very end for the hero to learn who his antagonist is—as we saw with the end of Othello last week. Here, we’re told the stakes at the beginning. Hamlet knows his charge. He’s told by the visage of his father’s ghost that he was killed by Claudius, and it’s Hamlet’s duty to get revenge. And yet we have four more acts to go. Why do you think that is?”

“Because Hamlet’s an indecisive little bitch,” said a familiar voice at the front of the room.

Tim nearly fell out of his chair. He adjusted so he could see over an older man’s shoulder and spotted the broad shoulders and dark hair of Jason Todd. He was lounging at his desk, one leg halfway across the aisle, twirling a pen in one hand. Instead of the familiar Red Hood uniform or leather jacket, he was wearing a dark turtleneck and had a pair of glasses perched on his nose.

The professor laughed. “Colorful as always, Todd. Did you read ahead?”

“I’ve read it before,” Jason admitted. “You can already start seeing it in Act I, though. He sees his dad’s ghost and hears about his murder, but his immediate plan is to…act crazy and see what happens?”

“Well, he’s not sure the ghost was real,” another student, a middle-aged woman with gray streaks in her hair, commented. “He’s not going to rush into killing the king because of an apparition. It could have been an evil spirit trying to trick him.”

“It’s not like he trusted the king already,” Jason pointed out. “He hates Claudius from the start. He gets the excuse to put his money where his mouth is, and he immediately backs away.”

“Todd makes a fair point. Turn in the text to Act I, Scene II. Let’s go over his first conversation with Claudius and his mother…”

Finally covering his wits, Tim pulled out his book and flipped to the text. He stayed ducked low over his desk throughout the class, keeping one eye on Jason. Jason was a vocal member of the class, offering commentary and debating with both the teacher and his classmates over different lines. He alternated from casual mockery of the characters to in-depth analysis of the language with more knowledge of Renaissance British than Tim could have ever predicted.

Tim knew Jason loved to talk. Sometimes Jason monologued so long on the comms that everyone ended up muting him. But this? This was weird.

Once the professor wrapped up class, Tim steeled himself and went toward the front of the room to talk to the teacher. He saw from the corner of his eye the moment Jason noticed him. He stiffened, gaze sharpening on Tim like an arrow. Tim deliberately ignored him. “Hi, Professor Michaels,” he said. “I’m Tim Drake. I think Professor Morley told you about me.”

“Of course,” the professor said. She was younger than Morley—likely fresh off her PhD—and immediately smiled at him. “The ghost. I’m impressed you came tonight.”

“I told Professor Morley I would do what it took to make up the classes I missed,” Tim said.

“Like I told her, you’re welcome to join us. Speak up next time, okay? I’ll report back that you’re trying,” she said.

Next time. Debating Hamlet with Jason Todd. “Sure,” he said, and left.

Jason was waiting for him outside the classroom door, and fell into step beside him without a word.

Once they were outside the building—outside the earshot of any of their classmates—Jason turned to him. “What the hell,” he said, not bothering to make it a question. “Did Bruce send you, or is this some ‘Timmy takes initiative’ bullshit?”

“I didn’t even know you were taking night classes,” Tim snapped, bristling at the accusatory tone. “Trust me—I wouldn’t have signed up for one with you.”

“We’re halfway into the semester. I’m supposed to think you just dropped in?”

“It wasn’t my idea! I’m making up for missing my actual classes. What about you? Everyone knows I go to GU. When did you start classes at _my_ college?”

“It’s the only college in the city limits, dumbass,” Jason pointed. “Where else was I supposed to go?”

“But—But night classes? You’re a vigilante! You can’t take night classes.”

“You’re taking them,” Jason pointed out, then rolled his eyed. “Besides, they’re not two-in-the-morning classes, Timbo. It’s just past nine o’clock. You think the criminal underground has rioted in the first two hours after sunset?”

“Still. I never thought I’d run into you here. What are you even trying to do?”

“What nefarious reasons have you come up with? It’s a fucking Shakespeare class. I’m studying Shakespeare.”

“ _Why_? It's not like Shakespeare is up your alley."

“What, you think I don’t know how to read?”

“You’re from Crime Alley, Jason. It’s not like the schools there are handing out the collected folios,” Tim pointed out.

“So, that’s it,” he said. “You’re a classist little shit. Color me shocked.”

“It’s not that. It’s just that Bruce—”

Tim wasn’t afraid of Jason, not anymore, but when Jason’s expression crashed closed, he stopped talking.

“Just what?” Jason said, voice nearly a snarl. “That’s what Bruce said about me while I was rotting in my grave? He told you guys that I was just some thug kid from Crime Alley?”

“No,” Tim said. “He barely talked about you at all.”

Jason shook his head, jaw clenched so tight that the muscle jumped. “Right.” He turned on his heel and stalked away.

Tim jogged to catch up to him. “Look, I just want to know that you’re not going to cause any problems if I have to keep coming to these classes. I need them to finish my liberal arts requirements, and I don’t want any issues.”

“I’m not going to stab you in front of Professor Michaels,” Jason said, which wasn’t really the answer Tim was hoping for.

“I just don’t want you to sabotage me. I need this credit. If I don't do this, I'll have to repeat the whole class. You can’t…antagonize me during class. If Michaels tells Morley I was a disturbance, I won’t get the grade I need.”

“Come on. You think I _want_ to do a class with you? I’m sure you’re just as obnoxious there as you are on the job. You’re a know-it-all, Timbo. I won’t be talking to you any more than I have to. I just want to study the bard and do the work. I’m not going to waste my time throwing spitballs at you. This is my shit, Timmy, even if you think I don’t know Othello from Ophelia.”

Tim didn’t know who either of those people were. “You… _like_ Shakespeare?”

“Yes. I read. I like his work, though it’s better when some asshole kid isn’t sitting behind me judging me for the accent I use when I’m reading out loud.”

“You know, _you_ could always switch classes,” Tim suggested.

Jason stopped walking and turned to him. “You’re kidding. How fucking entitled are you?”

“You’re just auditing, right?” Tim asked, trying to be reasonable. Jason looked an inch away from punching him in the face, and he did not need to try to explain that to Bruce. “If you want to study Shakespeare, there are going to be other chances. Neither of us needs to suffer. You can even just skip the Hamlet section and go back once I’m free.”

“I’m not just auditing.”

“You’re…not?”

“Even if I were, I wouldn’t leave the class I’m _paying_ for just so you can have your happy-college-fun-times by yourself,” Jason said. “But yes. I’m taking classes toward my degree.”

“I didn’t even know you finished high school. I thought you…”

“No shit, Timmy. Yes, I died before I graduated. I’ve been back for years, though, and I could have gotten my GED at any point if Bruce hadn’t been so insistent when I was a kid that I do things the traditional way. I studied for a bit and got the GED, and I’m working on my undergrad now.”

“Why?”

Jason sneered. “Why are you?”

“I’m trying to be the Wayne Enterprises CEO. I need a degree. Your job doesn’t really require a degree.”

“My job being…?”

Tim hesitated. Jason couldn’t still be doing the mercenary work he had done when he had first appeared on the scene as Red Hood. Even then, he’d had boundaries, and now that he was mostly working within the Bats’ code, he wouldn’t be able to kill anyone. “I don’t know,” Tim finally admitted. “What do you want to do?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Jason said. “I’m paying for these courses too, and I’m not going to leave just because my replacement has shown up once again thinking that he’s more valuable than I am.”

“It’s not that I think I’m more valuable…” Tim said, but he thought he’d lost the high ground at some point in the last few minutes.

He’d been sure that Jason would sabotage his grade somehow. Jason had been the antagonist in Tim’s life for so many years; first as the ghost he was fighting to save Bruce from, and then from the flesh-and-blood maniac he was fighting to save everyone from. College was Tim’s thing, and Jason was the interloper. But it turned out that he had things wrong—Jason actually cared about poetry and plays. Tim was the one who had shown up uninvited with no real interest in the class.

“Are you going to tell Bruce?” Jason asked, folding his arms. Under the streetlights, there were harsh shadows on his face.

“Tell Bruce what?” Tim asked. “It’s not like he’d stop you from taking college courses, Jason.”

“He couldn’t even if he did want to,” Jason snapped.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Bruce…always wanted me to go somewhere else. Pursue my English degree somewhere that took it seriously.” English major? Tim really _didn’t_ know Jason. “If he finds out I’m at GU, he’ll probably interfere and try to get me to transfer somewhere else.” He huffed a sigh and shook his head. “You know what? Scratch that. Apparently he’s forgotten all that stuff anyway. I don’t know why I was worried.”

“He wanted me to go to Yale, like he did,” Tim commiserated.

“Whoop-de-doo for you,” Jason said.

Tim rolled his eyes. “Don’t be an asshole. I’m not bragging—I’m commiserating.”

“Sure.”

“I won’t tell him you’re in my class, but I don’t think he’d care.”

“Yeah, that would be a real shock.”

“I mean that he wouldn’t mind. Or interfere. He’d probably just be glad you’re following your dream.”

“And not following my previous career path as a crime lord?” Jason sneered.

“Well, that too,” Tim admitted, and Jason laughed. “Look, I promise not to interfere with you. I won’t have time to. I don’t understand Shakespeare. I’ll be too busy trying to figure out what the professor is talking about to bother you. Just…do your thing, and I’ll do mine.”

“You don’t understand Shakespeare? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”

“I’d rather code an entire website than try to read a sonnet,” Tim said. “I’ve never really liked reading. This class was already a struggle for me. That’s why missing those few classes could land me with a failing grade. I was already on the borderline.” He hesitated. “But you like Shakespeare…”

“I’m not going to be your study buddy, Timbo.”

“We don’t have to sit down together! You could just look over my final essay and make sure I didn’t write anything completely stupid.”

“Out of the goodness of my heart? Or is this the part where you threaten to tell Bruce everything if I don’t help you? You could try actually _reading_ the plays.”

“I have read them. I just don’t get them. And I’m going to threaten you.” Tim wasn’t stupid enough to think he could threaten Jason successfully for any length of time. It would be like getting a fishing hook into a great white shark. “If you’re going for a degree, you’ll have to take other requirements. I’m sure there’s something you’ll have to take that I’m better at than you are. You can call in the favor then.”

“Are you serious?”

“This is important to me. I told Bruce that I would ace GU, even if I’m splitting my time with my other responsibilities. I’m not ready to give up.”

Jason pondered that for a long moment. For someone so talkative, he was comfortable with long silences. Tim had always thought it was a way to throw other people off, but he’d read Jason wrong before. Maybe this was part of the side of Jason that sat still for hours reading Shakespeare plays. He wasn’t just a bruiser—he was introspective. Finally, he said, “How are you with economics?”

“I’m the CEO of Wayne Enterprises,” Tim pointed out. “Or I will be, as soon as I get this degree.”

“Nepotism at its finest,” Jason said.

“I really am good at economics,” Tim assured him. “Numbers make sense to me. Do we have a deal?”

“You have to actually read the plays. I’m not going to be your SparkNotes,” Jason cautioned.

“And I won’t be your calculator,” Tim said.

Jason held out his hand. It was strange to see him without gloves. “Then it’s a deal, shortstack. ‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.’”

Tim shook his hand. “I’ll see you on Wednesday. ‘Parting is such great sorrow.’”

“Oh God, please don’t butcher the bard already,” Jason said. “Leave that to the professionals. Maybe by the end of this I’ll give you one or two good quotes for witty repartee during battle, but don’t attempt it on your own.”

Tim frowned. “How many of the clever things I’ve heard you say over the years have just been quotes?” Tim asked with dawing realization.

Jason winked. “There is no darkness but ignorance,’ Timbo.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Hamlet: "This above all: To thine own self be true."
> 
> A special thanks to lurkinglurkerwholurks for talking through this idea, and helping me come up with a key line of dialogue!
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](http://starknjarvis27.tumblr.com/)!


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